One of the most promising introductions at Google’s I/O developer conference on Tuesday was a new way for consumers to use the web: AI agents. Unfortunately, it was also the most confusing. Google took the wraps off information agents, a reinvention of the aging Google Alerts service, now infused with AI. These AI agents are designed to operate in the background 24/7, helping users stay up to date on topics they’re interested in, like market trends, price tracking, or inclement weather warnings. Information agents.Image Credits:Google Then there is Gemini Spark, a “personal” AI agent that can help you navigate your digital life by integrating with Google products, like Gmail, Google Docs, and Google Workspace. The company says the assistant can handle everyday tasks like surfacing themes from newsletters, organizing your home inventory, and keeping track of what needs restocking, or helping you plan and manage a group trip with friends. Or, as Google showed off in a very engineering-minded example, you could use it to organize a neighborhood block party — as if that would require any management beyond a group chat or some emails. Gemini Spark.Image Credits:Google There’s also a name for how you track notifications from Spark: Android Halo. (Why an Android feature needs its own brand is beyond me, but a good guess is that Google’s internal product teams are fairly competitive and want to highlight their own work, even at the risk of confusing users.) Image Credits:Google Next, Gemini’s app is getting an AI agent that can compile a personalized digest from your Gmail inbox, calendar, and tasks, and provide an update called Daily Brief. Image Credits:Google Many of these products have not yet shipped, or at least won’t be available to the wider public right away. Instead, Google is targeting its heavier users for now: the “AI-pilled” subscribers of its new, only <head>00-per-month Google Ultra plan. Google Pro and Ultra subscribers in the U.S. will get to use information agents starting this summer, and Spark will be available to Ultra subscribers “soon.” Halo will ship to Android users “later this year.” Daily Brief is rolling out in the U.S. to Ultra, Pro, and Plus subscribers. Image Credits:Google As a result of all these launches, we’ll soon have so many entry points for using AI agents that it may be overwhelming as to where to start. (Did I forget to mention the increasingly agentic Chrome web browser, too? Google showed off how you could talk to Chrome while shopping for cars online to configure the various options and trim levels you can afford without tapping on a keyboard and clicking around. Yay … I guess?) In a press briefing ahead of I/O, Google said it intends to bring its agentic features, including Spark, to free users “when the time is right.” But for the time being, the company’s more interested in iterating with a group of people, like the Ultra subscribers, who will push the limits of what Spark and AI agents can do. Image Credits:Google In the meantime, Google is furthering the divide between those who have already bought into (literally!) the promise of AI, and the average consumer using Google’s free tools, who’s likely distanced from the real-world improvements AI offers, like agentic coding or AI-enabled computer use. Instead, consumers today largely think of AI as chatbots replacing traditional Google searches. They think of AI photo and video models not as impressive creative leaps, but as tools for making “AI slop” that now clutters their social feeds and result in unwanted data centers being built in their backyards. Google didn’t help its reputation on this front during the event, flashing goofy AI imagery between each presenter. It also played a corny AI-generated animation featuring Cinnamon Toast Crunch-esque talking Tensor chips. And in its Android glasses demo, Google showed how the devices — which will later support photo-taking — could use AI to transform photos users take into something else. Image Credits:Google This demo involved the presenter taking a picture of their view of the audience, which was modified to have a blimp floating overhead, and then sent to their Android Watch. Okay, neat, but is it worth someone’s home being torn down via eminent domain to build new power lines for a data center? People will need more than clever party tricks to accept such drastic societal changes. Image Credits:Google In previous years, Google introduced new consumer electronics devices, like Pixel phones and Nest Hubs, alongside new Android features, like that restaurant-and-salon booking service that blew people away in 2018. Those pieces of technology were framed as attempts to smooth over some of life’s everyday hassles. Now the tech giant is showcasing its new models (but not Gemini Pro 3.5, which wasn’t ready yet) alongside its developer platforms, and largely forgetting about who it’s building all this for: Regular
